Retired Officer: Serial Drunk Driver ‘Inherently Evil’

SALEM (CBS) – Retired Marblehead Police detective Marion Keating couldn’t believe it when she saw the front page of her local paper. A serial drunk driver she had helped to send away to prison had allegedly done it again.

“I hate to say it but he’s inherently evil,” Keating said.

Peter Anketell, 55, of Salem, has a 25-year history of drunk driving arrests on the North Shore. He’s been arraigned over 150 times.

Retired Marblehead Police detective Marion Keating (WBZ-TV)

On Tuesday, he was arrested again in Salem after crashing a car on Derby Street. He has no license because it has been revoked for life.

In 2004 Anketell was sentenced to 10-14 years in prison after a fatal drunk driving crash in Marblehead. His then girlfriend, 40-year-old Cynthia Wilson, was killed.

Keating, who investigated the case, said Anketell tried to move Wilson’s body to look like she was the driver.

“He was trying to allege that she was driving,” Keating said. “To do that from the passenger seat, you’d have to get somebody to the driver seat which he didn’t actually accomplish.”

Anketell is being held without bail until a dangerousness hearing on Tuesday. In the meantime, Keating says there’s only one way to stop him: “Find him to be a habitual offender and send him to jail for the rest of his life,” she said. “I can’t think of any other way to keep people safe.”